Backbench MPs, critical of the proposed merger between EADS and BAE Systems,
are seeking urgent talks with the Prime Minister after it emerged that
Germany and France were stalling on giving up their influence in the
enlarged €48 billion company.

Opposition in the United States also erupted, with Boeing launching a
withering attack on European state support for EADS’s Airbus division.

Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre, many of whose
constituents work at BAE, said that he would lobby both Downing Street and
Congress in Washington over the deal. He said that while he and some of